Monday, September 1, 2008

Through Thick and Thin

So it turns out that Charles Johnson has written a very good article on thick and thin libertarians. For the record, I agree with most of Johnson's personal views, but think he fails to make a case that libertarians should battle all of these other things along with statism.

He argues for a thick libertarianism that opposes

authoritarianism, not only as enforced by governmentsbut also as expressed in culture, business, the family, andcivil society.

His argument is basically that libertarians should oppose all forms of authoritarianism, even those based on voluntary association, because they encourage statism.

Whatever reasons you may have forrejecting the arrogant claims of power-hungry politiciansand bureaucrats—say, for example, the Jeffersoniannotion that all men and women are born equal in politicalauthority and that no one has a natural right to ruleor dominate other people’s affairs—probably serve justas well for reasons to reject other kinds of authoritarianpretension, even if they are not expressed by means ofcoercive government action.

The problem I have with Johnson's argument is that without the use of threat or coercion, nobody really is being "ruled" or "dominated." If your "submission" to an authority figure is voluntary, then it ceases to be domination.

Should libertarians battle S&M sex games, along with the state? How about asshole football coaches (some of the most authoritarian people on the planet)? Should libertarians fight against teachers, parents, and sports referees? Should we lead the fight against online message board moderators?

Every job in a free market economy involves "submission" to a consumer or client. Should we battle that too, along with the state? Where does it end?

Even in a completely freesociety, everyone could, in principle, still voluntarilyagree to bow and scrape and speak only when spokento in the presence of the (mutually agreed-on) townchief, or unthinkingly agree to obeywhatever restrictions and regulationshe tells them to follow in their ownbusiness orpersonal lives, or agree togive him as much in voluntary “taxes”on their income or property as hemight ask. So long as the expectationof submission and the demands forwealth to be rendered were backedup only by verbal harangues, culturalglorifications of the wise and virtuousauthorities, social ostracism of“unruly” dissenters, and so on, thesedemands would violate no one’s individualrights to liberty or property.He's right. They wouldn't (in fact, it sounds a lot like any arrangement with a landlord). So why does it matter? I'm an atheist, but I don't have any problem not going to church, despite the level of social pressure that exists. If you're not forced to participate, what's it to ya?

Will it make people more likely to accept statism/coercion? I don't see why it would, unless there is coercion involved. One can accept submission to someone else without accepting coercion (as Johnson himself admits). So why would it necessarily make people accept statism?

He asks us to

think of the feminist criticism of the traditional divisionbetween the “private” and the “political” sphere, and ofthose who divide the spheres in such a way that pervasive,systemic violence and coercion within families turnout to be justified, or excused, or simply ignored assomething “private” and therefore less than a seriousform of violent oppression.

Of course, no libertarian believes that violence in families is a "private" matter. It is aggression, obviously. So what's Johnson's point? Is this supposed to make thick libertarianism somehow different from ordinary libertarianism? Because it sounds a lot like plain libertarianism to me.

Now, I'm not against the idea that the non-aggression principle itself is insufficient to run society. For instance, I think that if everyone in a libertarian society decided to shoot heroin, throw orgies, and perform Satanic rituals with voluntary victims all day long, the society would become chaotic. It would also encourage people to create a nanny state to preserve order.

But without coercion as a guide, it is awfully vague what counts as an "authoritarian" institution, and Johnson's article seems to lead to the "modal libertarian" type of thinking discussed by Rothbard, in which one just blindly revolts against everyone and everything, while the state becomes less and less of a concern. This type of thinking is prevalent at sites like Infoshop and RevLeft.

Another problem is the more "thick" you make your libertarianism, the less people will come on board. Hell, just look at Objectivism. It's very thick, and it's a freakin' death cult as a result. 'Nuff said? You run the risk of alienating more people than you convert, which defeats the entire point of having a 'thick' libertarianism in the first place.

If it gets less people to accept libertarianism, how can it be a boon to libertarianism?

I am a big fan of Charles Johnson's work but ambivalent about this whole thick-libertarianism thing..